CLB is now in the South West region

Remember last year when Andrea Ager had all the pub as she switch from the Southern California region to the South West? No? Let me remind you – video 1 and then an extended version. There were other articles about the switch and as you can tell in the interview there was a sense that it would be easier for Ager to get to the CrossFit Games by moving to Colorado than it would be to stay in SoCal. She deftly redirects the questions when asked, but one can’t help but think it might have played into her decision a little bit.

Then the 2014 Regionals rolled around and she finished fifth. And it wasn’t really that close as she finished 25 points behind third place.

2015 will be no different. This time it isn’t a CrossFit Games hopeful moving to Colorado, it is the reigning Fittest Woman on Earth – Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet (to be referred to as “CLB” going forward in this post). New “super region” in 2015 and new super competitor in 2015.

What does this mean for the three ladies who qualified for the CrossFit Games from the South West region in 2015? The top five from last year was Amanda Goodman, Tiffany Hendrickson, Mandi Janowitz, Emmalee Teribery (now Emmalee Moore) and Ager will not only compete with the top contenders from the South Central and Latin America regions, but also CLB. The top five ladies from this new “super region” will qualify for the CrossFit Games.

These were the qualifiers from each region in 2014:
South West: Goodman, Hendrickson and Janowitz
South Central: Jenn Jones, Cassidy Lance and Amanda Schwartz
Latin America: Wanda Brenton

Thanks to this article on games.crossfit.com we already know that in this new “super region” that Brenton and Janowitz would have been the two ladies to not make the cut once the regions were combined and top five ladies given a ticket. Where does CLB fit into these ladies score? Here is how the top five scored in each event in 2014 from the new “super region” along with CLB’s score. The number in the paranthesis is where they finished in their old region with that score – to give some context.

CLB would have won every event in 2014 had she been in this region and the three regions from 2014 were combined into the new “super region”. It will be a fight for the four remaining spots for the 2015 CrossFit Games out of the new region. I think it is safe to say that CLB will not have any difficulty qualifying for The Games after her switch, unlike Ager.

Now, this is all just speculation, of course. One would assume that CLB will dominate this region as she is the Fittest Woman on Earth, but the 2013 winner of the title Fittest Woman on Earth, Sam Briggs, didn’t qualify out of her region for the 2014 games – and that was not one of the new “super regions”. Add in when the events were performed, the competition at the event (who was pushing the athletes) and other factors (the illness that surrounded the South West region in 2014) and anything can happen and I cannot wait to see what does happen.